Myouga's Plan
by mshutts
Summary: Myouga has the perfect plan for keeping his young master's mind off things. Set preInuyasha


Myouga's Plan 

by: mshutts

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or anyone else in this fic.

A/N: I realize that this does not go along with the way that the events of Inuyasha discovering about the jewel was portrayed in that special on the anime, but, this idea has been bumping around in my head for a while and just needed to be written down.

A/N 2: As you read, I would like you to keep in mind that this is PRE-SERIES Inuyasha. As such, he does not have the support and friends that he has in the series. In fact, the only person he has at all in this story besides himself is Myouga. So before you go jumping on me about how Inuyasha would never do such a thing, just ask yourself how you would feel, as a preteen, having heard your entire life that you were completely worthless from just about everyone you have ever met and only having one occasional voice telling you that you are not.

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Myouga was beyond concerned for his master. Over the last decade, his master had been getting more and more intense in his search for death of any sort. Myouga was sure that if he could just find SOMETHING that would interest his master, something that would give him something to work towards, he would focus on that rather than trying to kill himself. But, as it was, all his master could see before and behind him was more of the same treatment that he had received his entire life. He did not belong in either of the worlds of his parents and he was painfully aware of that fact.

Myouga was incredibly thankful to whatever deities existed that his master was half-demon and could heal fairly easily. Especially since it had not been an overnight attempt at killing himself. It had been a gradual buildup. He was still upset at himself for not noticing the onset.

The first time he saw his master enter a battle and receive an injury that he felt could have been avoided; he had not thought much of it. To him, it had been obvious that his master had merely lost his concentration for a moment and that had led to the unnecessary injury. His master had shown no sign of upset when the injury just healed itself over within a day. But, the next time he had gotten into a fight with a demon, he had once again made a 'mistake' and gotten an even more serious wound than the one previously. Again, Myouga wrote it off to being just one of those things and tried to tell his master that he needed to be more observant in battle.

It wasn't until the fifth or sixth time that Myouga had seen one of these 'mistakes' that he realized that his master had not only not avoided the blow, but had, in fact, walked into it which made the wound much worse than it should have been. He also began to notice that his master had taken to trying to goad higher and higher level demons into fighting him. Most often, this goading would end with one massive wound to his master and the higher level demon leaving the area.

Over this period of time, he had also noticed his master becoming more and more withdrawn. It used to be that his master would babble at him about whatever was currently occupying the mind of the young inuhanyou, but lately, he was able to get more conversation out of the birds than out of his master.

He had hoped that it might be a phase until he saw his master actually try to kill himself. His master had, of course, not been aware of his presence. He had watched from the shadows as his master took out a short sword he had acquired somewhere and very methodically cut deep gashes into his skin.

As soon as he was able to contain his own shock at this turn of events, Myouga quickly jumped up to his master to try and stop him. The response he had gotten still chilled him to his core. His master had looked at him completely dispassionately and stated, "What does it matter, Myouga? You and I both know what I am. A dirty, filthy, vile, half-breed. I should have been killed at birth and no one will miss me when I am gone. There is no point for me to be here. I just want it to stop. That's all. Thank you for trying to help me, but I release you from my service."

After that statement, his master had returned to what he had been doing, completely ignoring Myouga. The flea demon had never felt so useless. He could not think of anything other than his own feelings on the matter to dissuade his young master and he knew the half-demon was already aware of his servant's thoughts. All he could do was cry and continue with pleas that fell on deaf ears.

He did not stop pleading and attempting to talk his master out of this self-destructive behavior until the hanyou fell unconscious from blood loss. He then kept watch the entire night and observed his master's wounds heal themselves as the inuhanyou's chest slowly rose and fell with each breath. It was not until the sun arose the next morning and he was sure that his master would live for at least one more day that he left in search of his old friend.

Upon reaching the cave where his friend dwelt, he explained the situation as he understood it to the old sword smith, hoping he would be able to assist in some way or at least know of someone who could. It was while he was there that his friend gave him the most interesting idea: If his master found something of interest to strive towards, his focus would be redirected onto achieving his goal rather than on trying to end his own life.

Latching onto this idea, Myouga searched high and low for something to interest his master. The only problem was, there was in actuality very little that would interest the young inuhanyou. Most things that boys his age would do were not available to him because of his half-breed nature which was something his master was already painfully aware of. Not wishing to exasperate the problem, Myouga instead set his sights on things where it would not matter that his master was a hanyou.

It was on one of his trips to try and find something to interest his master that he received word from one of his bird friends about a very interesting piece of information she had overheard among the lower level demons. Apparently there was a jewel out there that granted its user almost insurmountable power in the form of a wish to be granted.

Myouga was skeptical that such a thing could exist at first, but then realized something rather important. No one seemed to know where the jewel actually was. As such, it was not so much a matter of worrying about what would happen when his master got his hands on the jewel. It would merely be enough to give his master something to focus on rather than self-destruction.

Hurrying to his master as quickly as he could, he was almost beside himself with glee. An endless quest such as this one would undoubtedly take a lot of time and focus on the part of his master. And as long as he could make it seem like his master was merely one step away from achieving his goal, he could continue to string the young hanyou on indefinitely until his master finally came out of this suicidal rut of his for good.

Reaching his master who was lying listlessly on a tree branch, Myouga began to quickly explain what he had heard from the bird. Noting that his master did not seem overly interested in what he had to say at first, Myouga fought hard against his own despair in the situation and desperately began to tell the inuhanyou of the things that he thought could be done with the jewel. He still wasn't sure which one of the ideas he proposed actually appealed to his master, but he suddenly had a rather attentive audience.

Realizing that he had reeled in the child's interest, he hid his smirk as the questions began to come. "Where did you get this information from? Did they have any idea where to look for it? What does it look like? How much do you trust this information? Could something like that actually exist?" and so on. He could barely contain his joy over his master having taken the bait and answered as many of the questions as he could from what he had heard and those that he could not answer, he downplayed their significance.

But there was one question he could not answer that he knew would need to be at least partially answered, to his satisfaction, if this was to ever work out. The question of where it was. Now, from what he had heard, no one really knew that exactly, but he couldn't just tell the hanyou that, it might discourage him from thinking that it actually existed and he couldn't allow that to happen. However, at the same time, he didn't want his master asking around and possibly finding out information from others and getting himself killed trying to go after it directly.

Thankfully, he had thought on this very problem while he was trying to get to his master and had come upon an interesting solution. His current master's father would have wanted his son to be trained in fighting. And, while it was true that the hanyou could generally hold his own in a confrontation, he had shown little to no patience for learning the various fighting forms, not that there was anyone willing to teach the half-demon anything and Myouga would be the first to admit that he knew so little about fighting it was laughable.

However, this little quest offered not only the perfect opportunity to give his master something to strive for, but it also opened up the possibility of tricking his young master into learning various fighting styles. As such, when the question of where the jewel was supposed to be was proposed, he had told his master that he had heard it was being guarded by samurai. And when his master had insisted that he would be able to easily take care of these samurai, he informed the young hanyou that it was not just a couple of samurai, but an entire army of over a hundred.

He could see the beginnings of doubt seeping into his master's eyes. While his master may have no problem with a dozen or so humans at one time, over a hundred was an entirely different story and he knew it. Before the doubt could be turned into hopelessness or despair, however, Myouga was quick to point out that there might be a way for him to accomplish his task.

He then outlined his idea of performing reconnaissance and spying on samurai who were training, learning their movements and their attacks and counter attacks. That way, he would know what to expect. Myouga had even managed to find an outfit of samurai while he was on his travels that would be perfect for his master to watch. And, being that they were humans, there was much less possibility of his master getting hurt or even caught than if he started out with the demon fighting system.

Having gotten his master squared away with watching and studying this group of samurai, Myouga found himself free to look around once again. He had started out with the samurai because, while their forms would be a challenge for a human, for his master, it would merely be the starting block to other things. However, he also knew that, as a starting block, it would not be long before his master learned all they had to teach and grew bored. He had to be back before his master decided to start asking around trying to find out which castle the jewel was being hidden at.

To this end, Myouga asked his animal friends for help in finding a group of the next level of human fighters he could think of: ninja. It took months to receive word back that was positive on having found a group. During that time, Myouga had periodically checked on his master who, as he had suggested, had been following the samurai discreetly and observing and attempting the moves they were using. By the time he had news on where his master's next lessons would be, his master had already completed almost all of the training that he could garner from this group and was getting restless to move on to the castle that housed the jewel to try out his new skills.

And so, it was not a moment too soon when Myouga arrived back with news that the jewel was no longer being guarded by mere samurai, but that it was now being guarded by ninja. He had explained that there had been several close calls from what he had heard and that the samurai had to be replaced because they were too easy to get through.

He watched his master attempt to hide his disbelief at this turn of events and had to hide a smile. His plan was working perfectly. Now all he had to do was drop some hints about where he had heard of a group of ninja for his master to observe, and his master would be off to his next training destination.

And when he finished with the ninja, he was going to tell him that he wasn't the only one who wanted the jewel. He would have to fight off the competition. It would most likely be many lower level demons who his master had fought on several occasions, but there were just as likely to be a number of midlevel demons and what if they attacked en masse? His master would need to at least defeat several different types of midlevel demons if he even wanted to stand a chance at ever getting anywhere near to the jewel.

Of course, after this was accomplished, there would be the matter of the jewel having been taken out of the guard of the ninjas and put into the hands of the demon slayers. So, of course, he would have to learn their attacks as well. Then he would tell his master that it had been given to the monks to guard and finally, the priestesses.

He was hoping by the time his master had gone through his entire list, he would be able to come up with something else for his master to do. Either that, or his master would lose interest in the jewel somewhere along the way and find something better to do with his time on his own. However, that was still a long ways off into the future. A couple decades at least, if Myouga had his say. And by the time his master had completed all these tasks, he would have in his arsenal enough training to survive. Not enough to go up against someone like his older brother or deceased father, but enough to get by against most other humans and youkai.

It had just never really occurred to Myouga that the jewel actually existed. Had he known it did, he might have never tried to get his master interested in the first place. But, then again, maybe he would have.  
- - - - -

Like I said, nothing like what was shown on the special, but am I the only one who ever wondered just what kept Inuyasha going for the interim years between when his mother died and when he met Kikyo? The series just kind of completely ignores it.

In any event, thank you for reading and/or reviewing. I hope the first part didn't depress anyone too much.


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